The Canadian Mafia adds Test, and I'm fine with that. I wish Storm could have done his Velvet Curtain Promo in front of the crowd instead... same goes for the Pissed Off Canucks group talk backstage. To be honest, they're taking three less-than-hugely over workers (though with them exclusive to the SmackDown heat machine, who knows) and putting an almost sure-fire heat drawing angle on them. They really need to keep these guys in front of the crowd when they're talking. As for the Jericho argument, I'm kinda split... if they put him in, it gives a huge rub to the other members, but diminishes Storm's role. I'm thinking they could use a 4th member, but possibly yet another newcomer to the SD roster... like it's not packed enough already. They need a monster, which is the flavor of the day right now, but would still help. Storm's the serius one, Christian is the whiner, and Test is the wiseass jerk (kind of like Edge, except he's a heel.) They need somebody who instills fear and isn't Elix Skipper.

I watched Batista's clothesline three times... wow. As many others have said, this was a total SmackDown 4 minute special, but it was pretty good for what it was. Orton looked pretty good and the selling for Dave's Not Here, Man immediately moved him up my list, from Hardcore Holly Squashee to Maybe He's Ok. Speaking of he and Holly... DAMN there's like 10 guys on the roster now who throw THAT dropkick. Billy's was fucking INSANE tonight- I had to rewind to see if he came off the top rope or something. Anyway, yeah, Batista = cool. D-Von and Faarooq really looked old, despite both of them still being able to go pretty well. AND LOOKIT D-VON GET FUNKY AFTER THE MATCH!

Cena (yep, Sting) looked pretty damn good against Angle, but as a few have mentioned, it was against ANGLE and all. I too heard good and bad reviews of his dark match and house show work against Shelton Benjamin, so, yeah, we'll wait and see. I have to say, I'm disappointed that Cena came in as a face, since most of us never got to see his highly touted work as a heel. ('Cept Drew, ya bastard.)

Edge looked totally gassed as Y2J on the ramp, but by the time he got to the ring, he appeared more Edge-sized again. Seemed like the crowd response once he started doing moves to Jericho wasn't so hot.

The CW tag match was alright, but could have been much more. It sounded like the CW Title match at KOTR... standard heavyweight work plus a few highspots. I am so SO fucking sick of punches making up half of a match, and it's even more craptastic when the cruisers have to do it, too. Still, Hurricane was ok, Noble is more suited for singles, Tajiri continues to be a Captor Of The Heart, and Kidman is back down to being a guy with a Rydeen Bomb and an SSP... and now he's doing it in PANTIES. I've never seen a guy fall down so many steps on the Good Ring Attire Totem Pole like Kidman. He needs the Viscera garbage bag.

But yeah, jolly good show.

In clsoing, HitTheSnoozeButton gets a gold star for taking a shit AND TELLING US ABOUT IT. Manly!

I met Cena as Prototype at a UPW show once and at the time, he was the buffest person I had ever seen in person. That was about a year and a half ago. He's either slimmed down since then, or he just looks way smaller on TV.

Anywho, did anyone else get any Face-Turn vibes from Taker tonight? That would make absolutely NO SENSE at all at this point of course, but he was being all nice to Cena then talking all the trash to Angle afterwards and my mind started to wonder in that direction.

Frosty, I've been thinking the same thing. It's like on Raw, Taker is a total heel. When he goes to SmackDown, he's a complete tweener, and I don't really care for Taker as a "shades of gray" character.

Wanted to mention earlier, but forgot... does EVERY SmackDown really need to end with a fucking two-man posedown?

Ah... and to be stuck with an ol' Dish Network receiver. Another good reason to switch? Bad rainstorm a couple of overnights ago. Sat subscribers got rain-fade, cable subscribers lost everything for a day. 15-20 minutes vs. 24 hours. As well, if/when Satellite must-carry kicks in, then there's hope of having local channels on your dish.

Hopefully, MDO's/CSO's will learn affordable pricing by then to compete versus each other.

Back to SD! -- I read the spoilers on Wednesday, but had to see John Cena wrestle. I say let him try and have a good promo next week. If so, *then* you plug him on Confidential, getting the UWF footage from the TLC special that was on about a year ago or so.

Bautista's lariat was sick enough that he could have finished him there. I do feel sorry for Randy Orton in some ways... he doesn't really fit the Vinny Mac mold.

Thing that scares me about all of this -- I'm more interested in next week's SD! than Monday's RAW.

I thought the only bad thing about the Cena-Angle match was the commentary. (Big surprise.) I've never seen this guy on my TV and Cole admits that he's a total rookie from the WWF's farm system but it only took two clotheslines for Cole and Tazz to basically say the Cena might beat Angle? Kurt Fucking Angle?! I wanted to throw a shoe through my TV.

I thought they should have tried to downplay and lower the expectations until the nearfalls started flowing, so when Angle got some offense in it was like "Cena got some offense, but now he's toast." Instead Cole and Tazz basically act like the guy should've been expected to win. The best analogy I could think of is when David Carr starts playing for the Texans they won't be pimping him to play like Brett Favre in his very first game.

I *did* like the match very much, especially Angle's double-chicken wing-rollover-pin combo.

Last night was undoubtedly the best show the Federation's put on in a long time, and it wasn't because they hotshotted a huge main event onto the end of it... for the first time in forever, there was excellent booking all around, there was great effort put out by everyone on tap, and there was NO-uh-BORING-uh-SPOTLIGHT-uh-HOGGING-uh-TRIPLE H-uh to ruin it.

-- John "Prototype" Cena: I think Mr. Scott Keith said it best when he said this guy is the next Sting. He's got the look, he's apparantly got the workrate (and remember, guys, he was fighting Kurt Angle but IMO PROTOTYPE carried the match - I'd love to see what the two of them could do with 15 minutes on a PPV). All that needs to be done is to give HIM the Brock Lesnar push (and as the days go by, I'm becoming more and more confident Brock won't win the title at Summerslam).

-- The tag team division is still very dead and still desperately in need of being floated between shows (when is the WWF going to realize that?) but if we get matches like last night's while we're waiting, I won't mind so much. Hardcore Holly is so much better as a babyface and Val Venis is so underrated. Keep these two together, please, please, please...

-- Watching the Undertaker/Angle exchange, the same thought went through my head as Mr. Scott Keith's... it sounds like they're going to pull the ol' double-switcheroo and have Jeff Hardy win the title on a fluke on Raw (probably with Matt's help) only to lose the title to Angle on Smackdown (where Matt won't be around to help him), leading to a three-way between Rock, UT and Angle at the PPV where Rocky wins the title (or a straight-up singles match between Rocky and Angle). That combination would be tons better than Rock/JPL/UT. (BTW: Now that Angle has embraced his baldness, he needs to start growing his hair back, because the bald look does not suit him.)

-- The one angle Russo did in WCW that I want to see played out here in the Federation is the Team Canada one, because it never really got a fair shake (politics forced it to be strictly midcard, and they were stuck feuding with the jokes that were the MIA). This is a great start to it, and not only does it give Lance something meaningful to do, but it gets Christian back on my TV, which makes me a very happy TK.

-- Prediction: At WM19, in his final match as an active wrestler, Hulk Hogan defeats Vince McMahon to validate his legacy and force Vince away from the spotlight for good.

-- Deacon Bautista: Good holy god. Screw Brock, THAT man's huge!

-- Well, Summerslam is going to be thirty minutes from my hometown, but I'm going to have to depend on the rest of the card aside from my personal God to pique my interest since I can predict with reasonably good accuracy that Chris Jericho will job to Edge at the show. However, that fact doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for a GREAT FEUD which will only elevate Edge more and hopefully prove to Vince and the creative team that Chris deserves another title run.

Last night was the first smackdown I have seen in a while and I'm definitely glad I tuned in. I'm not ashamed to say that I watched Manhunt and thought Cena was a pretty scary guy, at least until the players had guns too and could shoot back. Granted he was wrestling Angle, but I think he showed a lot of charisma and had the crowd on his side, pretty good for a guy they never saw before. I loved how he clocked Kurt Angle real quick and I did enjoy his expressions and body language after the match which seemed to get the crowd on his side even more. He had charisma on camera in Manhunt so hopefully it will carry over to the WWE. it's been said plenty of times, but I must chime in: Bautista is HUGE! I think he looks way more menacing than Brock. And Randy Orton deserves big props for selling that clothesline. He made it look like his neck just wasn't on right when he was lying on the mat. It was sick. After this weeks RAW and Smackdown I'm definitely planning on tuning in next week. Ever since the nWo ran into Rock's ambulance and Ross and Lawler sold it with the same expressions and sound of fear in their voice as they did Owen's accident i have been just reading CRZ's recaps. But this week's shows kept me pretty entertained.

NOMAD -- I think what Texas Kelly meant was "In my opinion, Cena carried that match." I disagree in that I think both of them did fine; neither really had to carry each other through it. Cena did his part well, and so did Kurt.

This makes me ask again why Angle has to be put as a comedic mid-carder when he does stuff like this for the company.

Um, hi. All these comments about Dave Batista? Don't you think you're a)Jumping the gun, and b)Being overly harsh on ol' Brocky? The guy threw a mena clothesline and a nice spinebuster. That doesn't make him any better than Brock. At all.

Old School's Film Quote O' The Week-"Five-foot-nine, I didn't know they stacked shit that high"-R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, Full Metal Jacket. He obviously hasn't met Tazz.